White supremacist group boasts about poster campaign at Purdue

White nationalist Christopher Cantwell, left, shines a flashlight into the faces of counterprotesters and media cameras on the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville on August 11, 2017.(Photo: Mykal McEldowney, USA TODAY NETWORK)

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A white supremacist group is taking responsibility for posting promotional fliers around Purdue University's campus on Sunday.

The group, Identity Evropa, on Monday tweeted photos of posters bearing its name plastered across campus. The fliers were put up Sunday afternoon and evening, according to the tweet.

Identity Evropa is a white supremacist group, largely made up of young adults, that focuses on the preservation of white American culture and white European identity, according to the Anti-Defamation League. It's identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Its slogan, "You will not replace us," was the primary chant (along with "Jews will not replace us") of tiki-torch wielding ralliers at the University of Virginia on the eve of the Aug. 12 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville.

Monday's tweet, which came from its Indiana Twitter page, said the flier campaign at Purdue was part of "Project Siege." On its website, Identity Evropa describes the project as the "beginning of a long term cultural war of attrition against academia's Cultural Marxist narrative." It aims to "create space" for its ideas at U.S. universities by talking with students and putting up fliers and stickers on campuses.

The promotional material is meant to garner name recognition and let potential members know there are existing Identity Evropa members in the area, the group's website states.

The Purdue Social Justice Coalition, an activist group on campus, on its Facebook page posted a photo of one of the fliers hanging up on the ground floor of the Purdue Memorial Union. The post said the fliers have been reported to campus officials.

When contacted by the Journal & Courier, a Purdue University spokesman provided the following written statement by Purdue President Mitch Daniels:

"There is zero evidence that any member of the Purdue community is involved in these leaflets, and there is nothing new to say about the situation. We reiterate our past statements and our disinclination to do exactly what these despicable people want most, which is to give them attention their minuscule numbers and their abhorrent views do not merit."

Posters promoting white supremacy from another designated hate group, American Vanguard, were found plastered around Purdue's campus last November. In response to the incident, Daniels released a statement in which he said the views expressed on the group's website are inconsistent with the university's values and principles.

"This is a transparent effort to bait people into overreacting, thereby giving a minuscule fringe group attention it does not deserve, and that we decline to do," he wrote.

Some students and faculty swiftly criticized Daniels for not explicitly denouncing the poster campaign and held an emergency meeting to plan a demonstration and demand a condemnation of the posters from Daniels. The next day, Daniels released a second statement that said Purdue's "opposition to racism in all its forms couldn't be more clear."

Upset that the second statement still did not explicitly denounce the posters, students and faculty held two separate protests on campus during which they chanted phrases such as, "Mitch, let's face it. Your silence here is racist!" After the second rally, a group of students held a three-month sit-in at Hovde Hall, which houses Daniels' office.

The letter emphasized that "racism, anti-Semitism, bigotry, and violence" goes against the university's values. It also called on students to use their right to free speech to "speak out vigorously against those whose words run counter to the values we all hold true as Boilermakers — those of respect, support, acceptance, and inclusion."